title: Infant development of configural object processing in visual and visual-haptic contexts.
abstract: Infants' visual processing of objects is characterised by a developmental trend from a predominantly analytical to a configural processing mode. In two studies with 6- and 8-month-old infants, we sought to replicate this finding in a purely visual condition (inspecting objects), and to examine how far redundant visual-haptic information present in a visual-haptic condition influences the processing mode. Infants were familiarized with two objects differing in three dimensions (texture, size and shape). At test, infants were presented with a familiar object, a switch object consisting of a recombination of familiar dimensions, and a novel object, and looking times were measured. Results indicate a transition from analytical processing at 6 months to configural processing at 8 months in the visual condition. In the visual-haptic condition, both age-groups displayed configural processing. Thus, redundant visual-haptic information seems to enhance object processing.
authors.affiliation: University of Giessen, FB 06, Otto-Behaghel-Street 10/F1, 35394 Giessen, Germany. Bianca.Jovanovic@psychol.uni-giessen.de
authors.forename: Bianca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jovanovic
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Duemmler
authors.forename: Gudrun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schwarzer
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012858:Size Perception; D014110:Touch